Des Buckingham happy to get first point as Oxford boss against leaders Bolton

Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2023 by PA

Oxford’s new boss Des Buckingham was delighted to get his first point since taking charge in a 0-0 draw with League One leaders Bolton at the Kassam Stadium.

The U’s bounced back well from their surprise 2-0 defeat at Cheltenham on Saturday and denied Bolton a ninth successive win.

“I think I’ll settle for that, on the balance of play,” Buckingham said afterwards.

“They’d scored seven goals at the weekend, they’re a very good team and they’ll be up amongst it at the end, with us, I’m sure.

“But we’d asked for a reaction after Saturday and I’m very pleased with what I’ve just seen this evening.

“We created a lot of chances, certainly in the first half, which we couldn’t capitalise on.

“But I thought we deserved at least a point.

“That point may turn out to be an important point at the end of the season, you have to take points off these sorts of teams.

“We created good goalscoring chances which we couldn’t take. But they will come. As long as we’re creating, that’s the most important thing.

“The goalkeepers on both sides earned their money tonight, but I thought our back four, in front of James Beadle, performed extremely well.

“Very pleased to come away with a clean sheet and very pleased to come away with my first point as the manager, and that it puts us in a solid position to move on.

“Elliott Moore is a very good leader off the field and it was good to have him back in the team, and you see the difference when he’s in the side.

“He’s a calming presence and he gives us different ways of playing out from the back.”

Oxford stay third in the table, just outside the automatic promotion places.

Bolton manager Ian Evatt was happy with his team’s showing, as they equalled a 123-year-old club record of seven consecutive clean sheets.

And they remain the League One leaders.

Evatt said: “We’ve stayed top, which is great, but it’s not about where we are now, it’s about the process and the performance.

“Tonight I think we’ve shown what a good team we are, especially in the second half.

“We dominated the second half and really should have won the game – but it happens.

“There are no negatives to take from tonight. We’ll park it now and move on to the next one.

“They had two chances but other than those we had possession, it was just working out where the space was.

“Their strategy was quite clever, but after we figured it out it seemed only a matter of time before we would get that goal.

“It shows the nature of football that on Saturday we scored seven, and tonight we probably created as many chances and opportunities and have not scored.

“But the performance was excellent.

“The clean sheets record is nice but it’s a team game. Nathan Baxter has made some good saves but also our back three were excellent.

“And we defend from the front and when you have control of the ball, it means the opposition can’t score.

“The dominance we had in the second half is what pleased me most. We just couldn’t finish it off with a goal.”